Month: May 2008

Yes. I know. No need to say it. I’m well aware that the plural does not take an apostrophe. But I don’t think anyone told the ad designers for Mexico’s tourist campaign as plastered across many many of Dublin’s buses is the slogan “There are many Mexico’s”. hmmmm.[1] Oh, and in case you were wondering […]

Katherine Mulley had been dead for five years and two months, the morning Isabelle received the letter from her.

I’ve read a few of De Lint’s books in recent years (and how old does typing that make me feel) but I think this may be my favourite so far. It tells the story of Isabelle Copley, an artist who has, in many ways, retreated from the world to live in isolation on an island, and the beings her paintings breathe life into. The story takes place over twenty years, and a lot is told through flashbacks, as well as the odd journal entry. The majority of the story we see through Isabelle’s eyes (though not in first person), but there are few others who have bits and pieces to tell us as well. The use of flashbacks and these different narrators means that the reader is never sure what happened in the past. Important events seem so different depending on the character, but it never gets so frustrating that I wanted the author to have used a different story-telling device.

You can’t kill what’s already dead! Nazi-Zombies! An 18s rating! That should tell you everything you need to know about this horror flick. Oh, and it has Ray Stevenson (Rome) as an ex-marine mercenary type. You already know that the premise for this film is rather silly. But just go with it okay, because this […]

In case any of you all were wondering Munster did indeed win the Heineken Cup. Twasn’t a game that’ll please any southern hemisphere types I’m guessing but I don’t care, I’m a fan of forward play. This would be my cue to start moaning about the ELVs and union turning into league, but I’ll resist, […]

Kaye took another drag on her cigarette and dropped it into her mother’s beer bottle

Our hero, Kaye, has always seen faeries and their ilk. Her mother dismisses these characters as imaginary friends and Kaye has always accepted her weirdness makes her difference from other people her own age. But when she moves back home and meets up with her old friends she realises just how different she is from her few friends.

Disappeared again for a few days there didn’t I? tut, tut, my bad. But just be glad I’m here at all. Cause you know… Nope, can’t come up with an ending for that sentence at all. Anyways, remember back two years ago I made such a huge fuss about Munster and the Heineken Cup final. […]

As you may already know I’m a big fan of Fred Vargas’ work and while this one is a library copy I’ll be buying this when it comes out in the proper size. I can’t stand these trade publications versions. They make no sense to me. All the negatives of a hardback with none of the positives. But enough about that; on to the plot.

The most straight-forward way of describing this book is to say that it is a murder-mystery. But with characters like Adamsberg there is no such thing as a straight-forward case. So when he spots something a little “off” about the two bodies that have shown up he decides that this case his rather than giving them over to the Drugs Squad.

I seem to have done nothing lately but reviews. And this after I made my grand “returning to blogging” speech. I guess I don’t have very much to say. Either that or I have too much to say, but to start typing it all out would involve actually processing thoughts and forming arguments and constructing […]

Dina Dalal seldom indulged in looking back at her life with regret or bitterness, or questioning why things had turned out the way the way they had, cheating her of the bright future everyone had predicted for her when she was in school, when her name was still Dina Shroff.

I’m not really sure where to begin with this review. This is a big book, both in the amount of pages and in the amount of ground it covers. Set in an un-named city in India during the State of Emergency after India’s founding it deals with four main characters whose lives intersect in the house of Dina Dalal who hires two tailors and rents out a room to a young student in an attempt to keep her independence.

See also: MichaelCollinsauthor.com ; Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind ; Lizzy’s Literary Life The E. Robert Pendleton of the title is a professor struggling to keep his tenure at Bannockburn College where he lectures in English. He is also an author; although recently he has been suffering from writer’s block. He hasn’t had any successful […]

I’ve read a few Graham Joyce books at this stage; this one by him won the British fantasy award so I was hoping for good things. It tells the story of Sam, a young boy growing up in 1960s England, who one night is visited by the tooth fairy, an entity that is not the insect sized woman with wings that you might expect. Instead he or she changes depending on circumstances. Sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes an androgynous figure, but always unsettling and unwelcome in Sam’s life.

ISBN: (Proof: 978043401866) 9780434018420 See also: mebelitheBookseller.com ; Book Geeks ; Extract A while back there was a comment left on the blog asking if I wanted a copy of The Gone-Away World, and, as I simply haven’t enough books[1] to read I figured why not. It arrived last week just as I finished Achilles […]

A Fairy Tale for Troubled Times An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962, where a mute janitor working at a lab falls in love with an amphibious man being held captive there and devises a plan to help him escape. I think that del Toro is one of […]

We are all possible victims We are all possible perpetrators. Possible bystanders. Irish Holocaust Survivor Tomi Reichental celebrates his 80th birthday in a Dublin Mosque and embarks on epic journey across a Europe in turmoil.